Famous Tourney Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Tourney poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous tourney poems. These examples illustrate what a famous tourney poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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The Four Ages Of The World

by Friedrich von Schiller
 The goblet is sparkling with purpled-tinged wine,
Bright glistens the eye of each guest,
When into the hall comes the Minstrel divine,
To the good he now brings what is best;
For when from Elysium is absent the lyre,
No joy can the banquet of nectar inspire.

He is blessed by the gods, with an intellect clear,
That mirrors the world as it glides;
He has seen...Read more of this...

Wapentake

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 To Alfred Tennyson 

Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine;
Not as a knight, who on the listed field
Of tourney touched his adversary's shield
In token of defiance, but in sign
Of homage to the mastery, which is thine,
In English song; nor will I keep concealed,
And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed,
My admiration for thy verse divine.
Not of the howling dervishes...Read more of this...

the buddha's tooth

by Rg Gregory
 (for matt – 15)

in the first seven years you choose your howdah
having by then bare inklings of a journey
but where or why - confusion there to cloud a
judgement no more ready than a sore knee
to enter the lists of a whole life’s tourney -
but after this howdah-do (this introduction)
what’s to carry you where - from muddy fluxion

and glimpsing that...Read more of this...

Upon Watts Picture Sic Transit

by John McCrae
 "What I spent I had; what I saved, I lost; what I gave, I have."

But yesterday the tourney, all the eager joy of life, 
The waving of the banners, and the rattle of the spears, 
The clash of sword and harness, and the madness of the strife; 
To-night begin the silence and the peace of endless years. 

( One...Read more of this...

Aix In Provence

by Robert Browning
 Christ God who savest man, save most
Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length
My honour, 'twas with all his strength.

II.

And doubtlessly ere he could draw
All points to one, he must have schemed!
That miserable morning saw
Few half so happy as I seemed,
While being...Read more of this...

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